On August 4th, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned a decision by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to cut the size of the habitat area for California’s largest remaining wild horse herd.

The federal agency had planned to remove 23,000 acres from the middle of the Devil’s Garden Wild Horse Territory in the Modoc National Forest. They claim this land was mistakenly added to the wild horse territory in the 1980s and that removing it now would cause “no significant impact.” The Court, however, characterized the move as “arbitrary and capricious.”

The Court found that: “The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign and other plaintiffs filed suit alleging that the Service’s revamping of the territorial lines violated numerous federal laws. We agree. A 23,000-acre tract of land and two decades of agency management cannot be swept under the rug as a mere administrative mistake. We accordingly reverse in part and remand for the Service to address rather than to ignore the relevant history.”

“This is a precedent-setting victory making clear that federal land management agencies cannot exclude federally protected wild horses or other key uses of public lands without grappling with the implications of such actions on the environment,” said William S. Eubanks II, of Meyer, Glitzenstein & Eubanks, who along with David Zaft, pro bono counsel for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, represented the American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC), Return to Freedom and California citizen Carla Bowers in the appeal.

You can also listen to the show on your phone by calling (917) 388-4520.

You can call in with questions during the 2nd half hour, by dialing (917) 388-4520, then pressing 1.

This show will be archived so you can listen to it anytime.

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Wild horses from the Carter Reservoir Herd Management Area on the California/Nevada border. (photo: BLM)

Our guests tonight are Carla Bowers and Bonnie Kohleriter (retired science teacher), who are wild horse and burro advocates and two of the best researchers in the advocacy. They will tell you why 83% of wild horse and burro herds are on the brink of collapse, and explain the real numbers and genetics, not the fuzzy math and inaccurate information that the BLM doles out to the public.

These women each personify the meaning of the phrase “one person can make a difference.” After attending helicopter roundups of wild horses in the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area (HMA) in northeastern California about 6 years ago, and seeing the reality of the actions of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Carla and Bonnie each got involved and started to go to BLM meetings, travel to HMAs around the West, and dig for answers.

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Please DONATE to Wild Horse Freedom Federation on Giving Tuesday. We’ve documented BLM roundups. (photo below is of two helicopters behind the huge group of horses. Photo by Carol Walker) We’ve documented the BLM’s radio collaring of wild horses. (photo by Carol Walker) We issued a White Paper that has been sent to members of ...